About 200 officials attended the International Paralympic Committee's
Extraordinary General Assembly meeting in Cairo.

They elected to allow the athletes to return to IPC competition, even
though there has not yet been a process developed and endorsed to ensure that
they indeed have intellectual disabilities.

The Assembly decided that the IPC would work with the International
Sports Federation for Persons with Intellectual Disability (INAS-FID) to
develop an eligibility and verification system that both groups can agree upon.

"Despite the fact that INAS-FID has not met the conditions, the IPC
membership has reaffirmed that the interest of the athletes comes in first
place," said IPC President Phil Craven in a press statement. "Now, athletes
with an intellectual disability should gradually be able to take part in IPC
sanctioned competitions in order to test the new process."

The IPC stopped allowing athletes with intellectual disabilities to
participate in January 2001 after it was learned that 10 members of Spain's
gold-medal winning Paralympic basketball team at the 2000 Sydney Games had no
disabilities.

One team member, Carlos Ribagorda, turned out to be a Madrid journalist
who wrote about the deception and described how Spanish officials' failed to
discover the scam.

The Spanish team was forced to return their gold medals.

After the 2000 games, the IPC said that it would not allow athletes with
intellectual disabilities to participate as long as there was no way to keep
bogus athletes from cheating the system. As early as two months ago, IPC
officials were not expected to lift the ban in time for the 2008 Paralympiad in
Beijing, China.

Athletes with intellectual disabilities and their supporters have been
pressuring the IPC to change its ruling, calling the ban a blatant form of
discrimination.